Lightning Process to be Evaluated in Research Study on Children

Well Bob, I just wanted to point out some things to make sure that you have considered everything before you jump in and make assumptions about what experienced LP critics have researched and written on the subject.

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Wildcat, I apologise if I have come across as being a bit harsh on you... But I've read back on my posts, and I don't think I've been unreasonable in raising my concerns with you in the form of a discussion... I apologise if any of my posts have come across as more of a 'lecture' than a discussion...

What prompted me to raise the subject is that your posts prompted someone to use the word 'disgusting' in relation to Ed, and I didn't think that this was appropriate or fair. Personally, I don't think that sort of attitude, towards Ed, is helpful for our community to effect change. It's not a constructive approach.

I can see that it might have been better to ask you your reasons for focusing so much on Ed, rather than jump straight in criticising you.
But I still question how constructive it is to be so publicly negative about an individual who doesn't pretend to represent the ME community, but who has raised funds for a helpful ME cause, before having a full discourse with the individual about all the matters that concern you.

there is the lives and health and disabilities of ME sufferers at risk here. One outspoken ME sufferer is not going to do Ed Stafford so much harm by posting on ME forums. The issue is not with Ed, but with those who should have informed him. And most definitely with Phil Parker, who is an accomplished exploiter of opportunities to promote himself and his businesses by encouraging celebrities to promote him and his interests. Parker has a long history of that. Esther Rantzen is a prime example. And Esther Rantzens promotion of LP was subject of some of the representations of evidence against the Lighting Trial to the NRES a few weeks ago.

NLP selling is a whole new ball game, Phil Parker is trying to outdo Richard Bandler, or at least avoid the business mistakes that Bandler made - thus the Branding of Lighting and the Trademarking and Licensing of it.

The amount raised by donations to the MEA for ME bioresearch in support of Ed Staffords Amazon Walk, are totally dwarfed by the 162,000 of Linbury and Ashden Trust funds given to the Lightning Trial on children with ME.

My motivations? Several years of researching analyising and writing to wake up the ME community to the dangers of Phil Parkers ambitions. Many years prior experience in the techniques that Parker uses to exploit and sell, and to seduce others to help him. Decades experience of the mind methods that Parker uses, though from an era that was not so exploitative.

Give the man a chance to consider the material, digest it, and respond in his own time, Bob.

Originally Posted by Wildcat
"The ME Association are now asking ME sufferers to vote for Ed Stafford as National Geographic' "Adventurer of the Year". Despite the fact that Ed is doing a form of Product Placement for Phil Parker and his products."

Bob, you wrote that my post above "prompted" someone to use the word "disgusting" in relation to Ed.

The person who responded to my posts was referring to the MEA.

You don't like or approve of what I have written, or is it the way I have written it? Despite the fact that I deny having "attacked" Ed, and that most of my posts on the subject have been factual info that is on sites in the public sphere. Well you are entitled to your view. But we shouldn't be naive about the nature of the personal growth/NLP/coaching industry and how it operates and does what has been described by another very astute ME sufferer as 'product placement'.

But we shouldn't be naive about the nature of the personal growth/NLP/coaching industry and how it operates and does what has been described by another very astute ME sufferer as 'product placement'.

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If you are going to widen your campaign out to the entire personal growth/NLP/coaching industry, then good luck to you, but I don't think you are going to win that battle. I think it is probably wiser to stay more focused on the issues directly surrounding LP.

Ed Stafford Publicly endorses Phil Parker and Parker’s coaching product on Phil Parkers commercial website, and on his own high profile blog.

There is no reason why ME sufferers should not bring that information that is already in the public sphere to the attention of other ME sufferers, or why ME sufferers should not give their views on the matter.

Ed would not be able to consider anything until ME sufferers brought it to his attention, because those who should have thought about such things did not act. It should never have be left to ME sufferers to contact Ed about the matter. The MEA should have done it.

ME sufferer Joe Kane on an ME Facebook gave his view on the MEA asking members of the ME community to vote for Ed Stafford in the National Geographic “Adventurer of the Year” poll:

"Vote for someone who publicly endorses Phil Parker?
Is the ME Association serious?
I take it from the rather flippant responses from Tony Britton to sick and ill people on this thread who are concerned about the mis-treatment they receive at the hands of the public health authorities in the UK that he's really not being all that serious about this endorsement by proxy of Parker.
This is no more than product placement for free by the MEA for Parker's commercial interests."

And you want to separate Phil Parkers Peak Performance product from the Lightning Process for ME Product that Parker used to get publicity for his company, and to get his name in the media, long before he started to expand into the High Performance and Corporate Coaching markets. But the Phil Parker Peak Performance product was built on the business and publicity foundations of Lightning Process for ME.

Some ME sufferers pointed out years ago that Phil Parkers real objective was the higher profit corporate coaching, celebrity coaching, and the high cost NLP professional training courses, because that’s where the real money is. The brand Lightning for ME was for Phil Parker just a way of getting his name in the media and to get established in the overcrowded NLP coaching industry.

Shame that the problem of the Lightning Process product was not taken more seriously by the main charities earlier, and by more ME sufferers, before we got to the stage that Parker’s LP product is being trialled on children in the NHS, and seems unstoppable.

There is no reason why ME sufferers should not bring that information that is already in the public sphere to the attention of other ME sufferers, or why ME sufferers should not give their views on the matter.

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I am not trying to stop you saying what you want to say... I was just questioning the usefulness, wisdom and fairness of the way you were saying it.

I'm not trying to stop you posting what you want to post, and I'm not going to keep raising the same subject. I've made my point now.

You keep replying to things that I haven't even raised or discussed, and you still haven't answered my specific point about contacting Ed.

I hear what you keep repeating about people who promote Phil Parker doing our community a disservice. And I will repeat that Ed is not pretending to be a representative of our community. He's just an individual who raised money for charity. So I don't think he's a fair target.

Bob wrote: "Wildcat, you seem to be assuming that everyone working for MEA would be aware of all the issues surrounding LP."

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Bob, the MEA has no CEO and only one senior member of staff. The Press and PR man, Tony Britton, works from home on a contract. Charles Shepherd is a trustee and can therefore draw no salary, anymore, as a medical advisor to the MEA, so he is "Honorary Medical Advisor".

The MEA is run and governed entirely by a small board of trustees.

All the trustees will have discussed and agreed the text of the joint press release and statement that the MEA issued with TYMES Trust.

All the trustees will have discussed the letter that was sent to the regional REC.

All the trustees will have discussed the decision that the MEA should contact a number of Trading Standards Offices with concerns about unsubstantiated claims being made on websites for the efficacy of LP for ME and CFS. (Which is a separate issue to that of the SMILE Pilot Study.)

When I alerted the MEA to the fact that Alistair Gibson, who was the subject of an ASA adjudication in June, was one of the collaborators in the SMILE pilot study that will have been discussed with the Board.

Parker allows his "licensed practitioners" to make claims like these:

What does it work for?

People using the Lightning Process have also recovered from, or experienced significant improvement with the following conditions: -

I would not be prepared to shake the hand of any man or woman who is prepared to associate with a man like Parker.

The MEA's Tony Britton has closed discussion of this issue on MEA Facebook. Yesterday, I walked off that site in protest against the decision to close that thread and remove an entire thread and due to my concerns about the moderation of that site.

I do hope that no-one here seeks to close discussion of the Ed Stafford/Parker issue, too.

I have contributed a considerable number of posts to this thread and to the other LP threads on Phoenix Rising. I don't consider it off topic. If you want to opt out of further discussion of the Stafford/Parker issue, that's your prerogative but I do hope that you are not attempting to limit discussion by others.

Bob, the MEA has no CEO and only one senior member of staff. The Press and PR man, Tony Britton, works from home on a contract. Charles Shepherd is a trustee and can therefore draw no salary, anymore, as a medical advisor to the MEA, so he is "Honorary Medical Advisor".

The MEA is run and governed entirely by a small board of trustees.

All the trustees will have discussed and agreed the text of the joint press release and statement that the MEA issued with TYMES Trust.

All the trustees will have discussed the letter that was sent to the regional REC.

All the trustees will have discussed the decision that the MEA should contact a number of Trading Standards Offices with concerns about unsubstantiated claims being made on websites for the efficacy of LP for ME and CFS. (Which is a separate issue to that of the SMILE Pilot Study.)

When I alerted the MEA to the fact that Alistair Gibson, who was the subject of an ASA adjudication in June, was one of the collaborators in the SMILE pilot study that will have been discussed with the Board.

The MEA's Tony Britton has closed discussion of this issue on MEA Facebook. Yesterday, I walked off that site in protest against the decision to close that thread and remove an entire thread and due to my concerns about the moderation of that site.

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I'd like to make it clear that I was not aware of any other discussion about Ed Stafford. This subject (Ed promoting Phil Parker's course) is entirely new to me, and the issues I raised here were purely prompted by posts on this thread.

I do hope that no-one here seeks to close discussion of the Ed Stafford/Parker issue, too.

I have contributed a considerable number of posts to this thread and to the other LP threads on Phoenix Rising. I don't consider it off topic. If you want to opt out of further discussion of the Stafford/Parker issue, that's your prerogative but I do hope that you are not attempting to limit discussion by others.

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No, Suzy, I was very clearly not attempting to limit discussion by others.
I was simply worried about hijacking a thread with my own discussion which I thought was off-topic.
This thread is specifically about the LP trial on children, and I thought it might be better to keep this thread just for that purpose, so it doesn't get clogged up with other contentious discussions.

The word might have been unhelpful, but there is a fine line between critiquing someone's character and attacking someone's character.
Rightly or wrongly, my perception was the Ed's character was being attacked... I could have used the word 'critiqued' instead. But please let's not focus on one word that I used in a legitimate point of discussion. I'm happy to withdraw the word "attack" and replace it with "criticise".

I would not be prepared to shake the hand of any man or woman who is prepared to associate with a man like Parker.

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I would argue that it is hard to influence people and to change an individual's opinions if you are not willing to engage with them.
Being involved with Phil Parker, doesn't automatically make somebody corrupt.
Like I said previously, Ed Stafford might not be fully aware of all the issues surrounding LP, so it might be useful if we informed him of the issues.
Anyway, Ed is not a representative of the ME community, and isn't directly involved in the ME community in any way.

Eds mother is Vice Chair of the MEA, an MEA Trustee; his sister has ME. That has already been pointed out.
Barbara Stafford and the other MEA Trustees should have made Ed aware of the offical MEA position on Lightning as Ed was officially rasising funds for the mEA for biomedical research on ME.

There have been no "attacks" on Ed Staffords character. Merely the posting of information aleady in the public sphere and valid expression of views about what has been written on public sites.

There have been no "attacks" on Ed Staffords character. Merely the posting of information aleady in the public sphere and valid expression of views about what has been written on public sites.

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Wildcat, I think you were definitely questioning and criticising Ed's character.
If the word "attack" is such a problem, then I withdraw it, and replace it with "expressing negative opinions about his character".

You were expressing views about Ed, which is your right to do so, and it's my right to question the wisdom and fairness of those views.

Phil Parker, thinker, designer and enthusiast. Phil has created a number of life changing training programmes including the Lightning Process and the P4 seminars and is fascinated by new ways of looking at things.

Looking for my Lightning Process blog? Please click here

Wednesday, 8 December 2010

Ed Stafford- National Geographics adventurer of the year?

The amazing Ed Stafford - the first man to walk the entire length of the amazon - ever- and all round good bloke is up for the award. Please show your support and vote for him.

Ed is now a sought after motivational speaker- in his talks he often kindly mentions how he used my coaching support to help him through some of the most testing times in his adventure.

Bob wrote:
"OK, then if I am mistaken on this point, then I will apologise to you Wildcat...
I'll have to look back at the posts, because I can't remember now."

Well there are rather a lot of Posts, Bob. If you think you are mistaken then I do accept your apology. I don't expect you to necessarily agree with everything I have written. But I do think the issues do need to be raised and looked at and discussed.

I've just looked back at your posts Wildcat, and I agree that my perception that you were attacking Ed's character was probably unfounded.
However, it could be argued that you were questioning his character, when you seemed to suggest that he shouldn't be entitled to an award.
That was my perception when I read your post.
But, taking your other posts into account, I accept that you have been far more balanced than that.
In that particular post, you didn't clearly express your views about why he shouldn't be entitled to an award, and when someone responded to your post with the word "disgusting", my perception, that you were questioning his character, was reinforced.

In any case, I accept that I have probably misinterpreted your words and motivations, so I apologise if this is the case.

Well there are rather a lot of Posts, Bob. If you think you are mistaken then I do accept your apology. I don't expect you to necessarily agree with everything I have written. But I do think the issues do need to be raised and looked at and discussed.

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I'm happy to apologise for saying that you attacked his character...
But that doesn't change my other criticisms...
I have raised some valid points of discussion, some of which you still haven't responded to.
I'm all for raising and discussing issues, which we are both doing.
But I am entitled to question another forum member's posts.
I think we've been talking at cross purposes most of the time, but I know that we are on the same side here...
I'm sure it is our ME that stops us from communicating with each other as clearly as we'd like to.
Best Wishes to you Wildcat. I hope that our heated discussion won't get in the way of future cooperation between us.